space security

UPDATE: In September 2018, UCS released an animated feature and video that explains how space-based missile defense works. Check it out here.

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Articles citing a classified 2011 report by the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA) have mistakenly suggested the report finds that a constellation of only 24 satellites can be used for space-based boost-phase missile defense. Read More

This week, President Trump verbally directed General Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “to begin the process necessary to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces.”

Rex Tillerson and James Mattis are talking to their Chinese counterparts. The conversation is just getting started but it appears to be constructive. Their remarks to the press after a recent meeting in Washington with State Councilor Yang Jiechi and General Fang Fenghui should calm Asian fears about potentially destabilizing changes to US policy in the region. Read more >

Fifty-nine years ago today, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into orbit, setting off a panic in the United States that contributed to the evolution of a “space race” between the two superpowers.

Last week, Congress held a hearing on the question of whether the United States was losing a new space race with China. Unfortunately, the witnesses seemed more interested in re-creating the alarmism of the Sputnik era than in offering Congress an accurate picture of the Chinese space program. This raises doubts about the value of the hearing’s contribution to congressional perspectives on US-China relations in space. Read more >

Many US observers believe anti-satellite (ASAT) attacks could be China’s trump card in a major military confrontation with the United States. But the reality may be exactly the opposite. The United States could have more to gain, and China more to lose, from taking the fight to outer space. A US presidential decision to pursue this advantage would make the United States, not China, the protagonist in a new space arms race that would undermine the security of both nations. Read more >